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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27811627">In The Memory of Others</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueshadows/pseuds/rogueshadows'>rogueshadows</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Y tu mamá también (2001)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Internalized Homophobia, Repression, Sad, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:13:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27811627</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueshadows/pseuds/rogueshadows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Found a few short fics in my drafts and decided to share.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Luisa Cortés/Tenoch Iturbide/Julio Zapata, Tenoch Iturbide/Julio Zapata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 1. Julio (Waking Up at Heaven's Mouth)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Julio wakes slowly, shifting against the too-thin mattress as he blinks in the dim light. He can feel the warmth of skin pressed along his arm and he focuses fully on the figure beside him. Tenoch is sprawled out and breathing open-mouthed. Julio tenses at the sight of him as his memories come back from the night before, fear spiking in his chest for what it might mean. How he might lose everything to the memory of Tenoch’s lips, feeling rattled and hating that he let this happen at all. Damn Luisa and her tequila, her soft hips and her voice, the way she’d made him think for just a moment this was alright. </p><p>He shifts away far enough so they aren’t touching. He lies there on his side still, feeling lost, wanting nothing more than to just watch him a moment longer. Nothing he can have, at least.</p><p>Tenoch’s hair is still tousled from when Julio’s hands had run through it, his eyelashes fanned out soft against his cheeks. His chest rises and falls and Julio yearns to lay a hand across it, to feel Tenoch’s heart beneath his hand as if it were his own. </p><p>The thought rattles a sigh from Julio’s lips and he bites his lip, he won’t cry for Tenoch. Not after all they’ve put each other through.</p><p>Of course, that’s when Tenoch opens his eyes, catching Julio staring. Tenoch slides from consciousness and his expression shifts to something pinched. Julio sits up, turning away, unable to bear the disgust that’s sure to follow.</p><p>He can put this behind him, he <em>can,</em> he breathes hard and flinches at the sudden touch of Tenoch’s fingers curling around his wrist. Julio stills, heart a drumbeat against the cacophony of the roosters crowing outside.</p><p>“Julio,” Tenoch breathes, sounding almost confused. Julio doesn’t turn, tugging at his wrist but Tenoch holds fast. “Hey, no.” Tenoch tries again, Julio feels the mattress shift with the weight of Tenoch sitting up. “Look at me,” Tenoch says painfully, forcing Julio to look out of sheer surprise.</p><p>Tenoch’s gaze is as intense as ever when he meets Julio’s eyes. Julio braces himself for the rejection, for a let down that will hopefully be kind and brief. Instead, he sees Tenoch soften, feels the brush of his hand almost tenderly across the tendon of Julio’s wrist.</p><p>“Come back, I-” Tenoch cuts himself off, sounding unsure, tilting his head towards the threadbare pillows. </p><p>“What?” Julio asks, trying to wrap his mind around Tenoch and the waver in his voice. Tenoch holds his gaze a moment, mouth opening and shutting again before he ducks his head.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Tenoch says, finally letting go of Julio’s wrist, looking lost. Julio feels untethered at the loss of his touch.</p><p>“No,” Julio says, watching Tenoch’s gaze shutter. “I mean, let me.”</p><p>Tenoch doesn’t react until Julio reaches out, wrapping an arm around Tenoch and pulling him close against his chest. Tenoch sighs into the touch, grasping at Julio with eager hands. Julio lies back and lets Tenoch settle against his chest, trying not to overthink this. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed with the words from the night before keep replaying in his head, in every desperate beat of his heart. <em>I love you, I love you, I love you.</em></p><p>Julio tilts his face down, jaw brushing against Tenoch’s hair where he’s tucked his head. The moment feels impossible and yet they’re both still, quiet, and wrapped up in each other. Both of them are too afraid or too wise to break the silence. Julio shuts his eyes, taking a deep breath, rubbing a hand down Tenoch’s spine thoughtlessly. Tenoch turns his face against Julio’s neck, lips brushing across his skin. Julio flushes and holds him tighter as Tenoch’s lips move over the same spot more deliberately.</p><p>“Tenoch,” Julio sighs, unsure of what more to say. Every rational thought in his mind warring against the tight feeling in his chest when Tenoch pulls back to look at him, waiting. All the words he’d expected to hear threaten to spill from his lips, that they can’t do this, that they should never have, to <em>forget</em> it all. </p><p>Julio says nothing, reaching up a hand to cup Tenoch’s cheek instead, tipping forward until their lips meet in a real kiss. It’s not as clumsy as the night before, softer and more innocent by far. Tenoch’s touch answers his own like an echo, fingers brushing along Julio’s side, holding him.</p><p>The kiss carries him away from his worries, the world revolving around the singular thought that Tenoch just might love him back. Even when his breath is spent, Julio pulls away reluctantly, panting in the stillness, the calm of Tenoch’s body on top of his own.</p><p>“What is this?” Julio asks, unable to stand not knowing. Tenoch sighs, pressing his forehead to Julio’s shoulder. </p><p>“You <em>know</em>,” Tenoch says, sounding pained. A shuddering breath follows it, one that drains Julio as much as it lets him know this is real. He thinks of their lives and all the impossibilities between them, the hurt they’ve caused each other, and wonders how they ever wound up here. Without Luisa as a buffer, each second feels raw between them.</p><p>Julio can’t say anything, tightening his arms around Tenoch and taking a deep breath. They lie there and he tries to come to terms with this, what he is now, what they are to each other. The filthy words he’d heard Tenoch use behind Daniel’s back when he came out ring through him harshly. Julio can’t reconcile it with the weight of the boy in his arms. A rattling ache in his chest tells him that this can never work, the feeling at war with how much he wants it to.</p><p>“And after this?” Julio asks. Tenoch is quiet still, pulling back to look Julio in the eyes.</p><p>“Forget it,” Tenoch demands, “for now, please.”</p><p>It’s a condemning answer. Resignation settles in Julio’s chest and still, he nods.</p><p>Tenoch kisses him again and Julio has no choice but to gasp into it, to take everything Tenoch will give while he can. It goes on until there’s a sharp rap against the doorframe, making them spring apart, hearts racing. It’s Luisa, standing in her bathing suit and just edging past the doorway to look in on them. If she saw, she doesn’t say anything.</p><p>“There’s breakfast,” Luisa says, “and beer.”</p><p>Julio nods dumbly, slipping on his shorts and not meeting her eyes. Tenoch murmurs in the affirmative and Luisa smiles, leaving them again. Tenoch is faced away, pulling his own shorts on. Julio knows it’s over but still stands, coming up behind Tenoch and wrapping his arms around him.</p><p>Tenoch makes a wounded sound but doesn’t flinch away. Julio holds him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder that seems to jar Tenoch from his stillness.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Tenoch says, pulling from the embrace with finality, not looking back as he goes. He’s out the door and Julio stares after him, waiting for the pain to fade.</p><p>It never does.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. 2. Tenoch (The Diner)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tenoch falters to a stop at the end of the sidewalk, the familiar shape of Julio coming closer as if to pass by, etched in the glow of the afternoon sun before him. He’s different and yet not at all, stilling when Tenoch meets his eyes to take the awkward half step forward, offering out a hand as if they were just meeting. Tenoch had hoped months of sleeping with the girl next door, of forcing Julio away, would clear away the static between them, shake the humming feeling in his chest. </p><p>They speak and all the words feel disjointed, far away. <em>You look well,</em> and the underlying question hung between them, <em>what are the chances of this? </em>Tenoch could make excuses, he could run. He feels tethered still after everything.</p><p>When Julio asks him to catch up over coffee, he says yes too quickly, following Julio across the street to a nearby chain diner. It’s the kind they used to flock too when they were drunk or hungover on a weekend, where they’d lean on each other and laugh. Now every memory feels like a signpost, that Tenoch had let himself fall long before he noticed.</p><p>The booth feels like a wide distance between them now. Julio’s graceful fingers curl around his mug as the waitress retreats with their order. Tenoch wishes for foolish things, that those hands would wrap around his own, that Julio could feel the racing pulse in his wrist and understand how hard this is.</p><p>He talks about Luisa almost as an evasion from the silence between them. He knows she would hate that and if there is an afterlife he hopes she will forgive him in it. She hid from things too, so maybe she would understand. The waitress breaks through the moment, and Julio waves her off politely.</p><p>“That’s terrible,” Julio says once the woman is gone, his gaze downcast, fixed on the table where he toys with the edge of his napkin. Tenoch explains the cancer, the fact that Luisa had taken them on that trip knowing it would be her last. He speaks for her and for himself, attempting to connect with the one person left who might help him parse out what it meant that she had chosen them, above anyone else, to help waste away what was left of her time. He supposes they were a distraction, the thought making the whole experience feel cheap. He wants to think better of her, of himself for not seeing through her act to recognize her pain. The time they’d caught her crying and the way she hadn’t seemed to <em>care </em>in the same way all adults seemed to<em>, </em>all felt like blaring signs he’d missed. If he had treated her like a person, rather than a conquest, would she have ever admitted the truth?</p><p>Maybe telling Julio about her death was selfish, as Tenoch has always been. He isn’t sure what response he expected, and watching the sadness that falls over Julio, is too much for him to bear. The instinct to comfort Julio is at war with his own sense of self-preservation. He chooses selfishness again, shrugging it off and making his excuses to leave before Julio can recover. Whatever Julio thinks of the abrupt dismissal, Tenoch will never know. Tenoch grabs his bag from the record store and stands, allowing a final cursory handshake between himself and Julio when the other man insists on paying for their drinks. </p><p>“See you, right?” Julio asks as Tenoch retreats towards the door. </p><p>“Sure,” Tenoch answers on autopilot, not giving it any thought.</p><p>He refuses to look back.</p>
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